By David Glenn Cox Today we have so many celebrities who take on social causes; it is almost a given that they will each have some charity or cause that they support. That is good, I suppose, but still there is a clear distinction between being socially conscious and being Woody Guthrie. Woody has…
Category: Essays & Letters
The Class War Within
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by Lester Macgurdy The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles. -Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto The throng of 8,000-plus protesters that converged on Pioneer Square in downtown Portland in early October was a massive chimera knit together by the tyranny of a world full of governments (ours among them) comprising…
A Brief Musing and Pathetically Informal Manifesto on Humanitism
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by Nate Perkins This is the internet’s greatest success: It is a private club that welcomes everyone and discriminates only against those who break the social contract that has arisen organically as a reflection of humanity. – a meshnet illuminatus by the name of DngrZnExpwyClosed The humanist focuses on the human as the cardinal, atomic…
Who Speaks for Occupy?
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by John Wood I’m on some of the planning lists and was involved in the December 12th port shutdown planning and in the EGT protest planning. Usually, whether or not an action had the approval of the General Assembly came up, implying that if it did not, it wasn’t a legitimate Occupy action. I went…
Defensive Black Bloc Tactics
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by Shawn Fleek ‘De-arrest‘ – Street tactic used by marchers and protesters who directly engage with police to assist in the escape of individuals who are in the process of being arrested. When a participant is apprehended by authorities, one or more people will rush the officer an attempt to either confuse them or pull…
The False History and Misunderstanding of “Non-Violence”
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by Adam Rothstein Recently, the Portland Occupier published an article entitled “Nonviolence Still Wins the Public,” that included a historical list of non-violent protests, intending to highlight how the peacefulness of protesters, especially in the face of violent persecution, won the day for various social movements. This was a very selective history that borders on…
Why Non-Conformity is a Good Thing
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by Lana Buchanan This quote attributed by Robert Green Ingersoll to Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) is a great example of non-conformity: “The Church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the Church.” Imagine if he had not had…
Philosoraptor, Occupy, and Social Change in the Age of the Internet
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This story was originally published on The Symbiosis Project. by Sam Smith Hi, I’m Sam from Occupy Tomorrow. I want to talk about something very interesting is happening in our culture right now. There are essentially two forms of culture we interact with every day: Read only culture, and Read/Write culture. Read only culture is…
Portland’s Artisan Economy
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by Angela Horton I used to work for a private business owner selling a line of retail food products at Portland farmers markets. Her brand is well-known and has an established customer base, as it’s been a part of the local food scene since the ’90s. I enjoyed the independence this job afforded me and…
Fundamental Errors – The Denial of the Feminine
by Michael Schultz When you get right down to it, we were (almost all) created through sex, born of a woman, embodied upon the Earth. Fundamentally, the body is the vehicle, the Earth is the life support system, sex is the catalyst, and woman the bearer of each generation. This is the reality and without…
